TSA woes: Privatize airport security?

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Photos:'Insane' lines frustrate travelers

Jeff Graveline was flying out of O'Hare International Airport on Friday, May 13, and he said he waited in the security line for 80 minutes. He had to sprint to his gate, but he made his flight.

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Photos:'Insane' lines frustrate travelers

It took Erin Fooch two hours to get through security at O'Hare on Friday morning. She just made her flight, but her boss wasn't so fortunate.

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Photos:'Insane' lines frustrate travelers

Jeff Dashley missed his flight on Friday because of long lines at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

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Photos:'Insane' lines frustrate travelers

Lisa Akey said she waited in line for 35 minutes Friday morning at LaGuardia Airport. She said the Transportation Safety Administration let people who had earlier flights go through lines faster.

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Photos:'Insane' lines frustrate travelers

Kym Jones waited in line for two hours at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Friday.

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Photos:'Insane' lines frustrate travelers

Siobhan O'Neill said the line at Chicago Midway International Airport looked really long on Thursday, but she was able to get through security in 40 minutes.

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Photos:'Insane' lines frustrate travelers

John Ronshausen said it took him about 35 minutes to clear security Friday at Denver International Airport.

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Photos:'Insane' lines frustrate travelers

Dan Morrison said the Denver airport was much more crowded than normal on Friday. He has TSA Precheck and was able to clear security in 10 minutes, but he said it usually only takes a minute.

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Story highlights

Juliette Kayyem says junking the current airport security model in the midst of a crisis is a seriously bad idea

The blame should be widely shared and the TSA is taking smart steps to fix the problem, she says

CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem is the author of the best-selling "Security Mom: An Unclassified Guide to Protecting Our Homeland and Your Home." She is a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration and founder of Kayyem Solutions, a security consulting firm. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.

(CNN)My children often tell me that I have two personalities: "mom mom" and "airport mom." The latter is not a compliment: she is rude and impatient, tries to maneuver through lines, views weather delays as a personal slight, and uses words like "outrage" or "injustice" at missed connections.

Simply put, airport travel can sometimes be a pain. So when the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, admitted last week to what was obvious to any traveler -- there were extreme delays in airport security lines due to a combination of factors -- airport moms (and dads) were understandably unhappy. It seemed that the most obvious solution was that the TSA had to be fired. Calls for privatizing airport security were heard throughout the airline industry.

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Take a deep breath. It's a horrible, destructive idea.

Let's begin with the obvious. The blame for the airport delays isn't solely on the TSA. Sure, we can all complain about some security officers standing in a corner joking around while we take our shoes off. But the challenges for airport delays have been building up for months and represent a perfect storm of inconvenience.

The blame can be shared, so the solution has to be as well. Since airlines are charging for checked luggage, more people are taking bags through security lines, slowing the process. As a result of lower oil prices, airline travel is cheaper. A stronger economy has led to increased air travel. Congress has, until recently, failed to support budget requests for more TSA agents. The public has been slow to apply for TSA Pre-check programs that allow easier passage through security lines and that decrease the time it takes to flow through the checkpoint. TSA employees have certain union rights that make shifting work hours to align with increased travel times subject to negotiation. And the job itself -- not easy, highly demanding -- is difficult so there is major attrition in the workforce.

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By all metrics, the TSA has responded in a reasoned fashion to a problem not entirely of its own making. Like any other security apparatus, the challenge for planners is that it stops the public from getting from point A to point B. An effective security plan optimizes the flow of people (and their luggage) without compromising the expectation of safety we demand given the vulnerability of airline travel.

These immediate changes to TSA planning -- requesting and receiving the budget from Congress to hire 1,600 more agents; increasing overtime opportunities for TSA employees; reprogramming DHS funds to support TSA hiring; giving airport officials an easier capacity to shift employee placements around so that security personnel are not being utilized for mundane tasks like announcements or putting baggage bins away; and better aligning security resources with the most popular airline flights -- are likely to reduce wait times. At the very least, they show that an agency -- so maligned so often -- is taking the complaints seriously.

The notion of privatizing airline security -- in the middle of a security challenge that is being addressed by the government -- is a solution in search of a problem. The issue isn't whether private sector employees could get the job done; maybe they could. But shifting mid-stream is surely going to impact airline travel in ways we can't imagine (for example, who trains these employees and who certifies that they are qualified?) and only solves one of a multitude of challenges that has led to the increased wait time. It also will undermine the important public union rights that are an integral part of why people become first responders.

Should airline security look different than it does now? Probably, over time. But changing in the middle of a crisis is a mistake. Beyond that, new technologies are making the burdens of passenger and luggage detection easier and less prone to false positives.

An aggressive publicity campaign to get more citizens qualified for TSA pre-clearance will also relieve a significant amount of the burden. Indeed, TSA Pre-check applications have increased by nearly four times the level of just a year ago. And it's worth criticizing the airline industry for its policy of charging for checked bags, even though the industry's clout would probably block any legislation to stop the practice.

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Security planning is not some static enterprise; it must be nimble and able to pivot given new threats and increased burdens. The solution is not to throw the entire apparatus out in hopes that some alternative looks better. Progress is going to be made. A multi-faceted issue -- with no single culprit and no quick fix -- requires complex and layered solutions. This is true in all homeland security efforts.

It will be a long time before "airport mom" finds traveling with three kids anything but a hassle. But that was true well before our summer of delayed wait times. Security is often an inconvenience. Government's responsibility is simply to make it less so.

CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem is the author of the best-selling "Security Mom: An Unclassified Guide to Protecting Our Homeland and Your Home." She is a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration and founder of Kayyem Solutions, a security consulting firm. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.